FORD VS FERRARI (2019)

At one point in FORD VS FERRARI, at about the beginning of act three, or perhaps the end of act two, when Christian Bale wins an important race, the people who he works for are... angry that he won... So here's a feel-good underdog sport film where winning is somehow rebellious... and Bale, as usual, deep-diving into the kind of old-school neurotic character-role that used to vanish into the background, steals the show...

But unlike THE FIGHTER, it's because the other players... including Matt Damon as the man who hired him to help Ford beat Ferrari at race car driving... doesn't have much to do but spout the kind of pump-you-up cliches that fathers bring their sons to movies for (that Tommy Lee Jones could pull off sleepwalking)... And for that, for pure mainstream popcorn entertainment, this is a fun ride, and simple to grasp... but the characters are either too roguishly-endearing or one-dimensional-greedy for the plot to really work since there's never anything to anticipate, or to be completely surprised about... Meanwhile, as otherwise intense actors, Damon and Bale are doing a general-admission imitation to please the kind of Middle-American/opening-night audience they'd personally detest, and would be better suited to a story with more edge and ambiguity (though the cookie-cutter anti-corporate spin would remain the same)...  So most likely, somewhere along the way, director James Mangold decided that jovial adrenaline was better acquired without too many distractions, which has made for a beloved, popular film... But if you go back and re-watch ROCKY, HOSSIERS or THE RIGHT STUFF, you'll learn how this sort of against-the-odds vehicle can work without trying so hard to always WORK FOR the audience instead of genuinely CHALLENGING them. Rating: ***

RICHARD JEWELL (2019)

All the negative reviews are mad at Clint Eastwood for portraying the media and one female reporter as being villains, and are blaming... get ready for this... Donald Trump and his supporters, somehow... The news-story here is about the 1996 Georgia Olympics bombing, when Trump was a New York City tycoon who the same pseudo-intellectuals that want his blood really admired... for all the money he donated to their causes... again and again... It must also be noted that anything produced by Leonardo "My car's electric unlike my super-yacht" DiCaprio (who almost co-starred) would be conservative, and it's crazy this is considered right wing, especially given the fact that every single political thriller since the 1960's have been catered to registered democrats, and most of these movies portray the FBI in a far crummier light than is displayed here...

Well here's something completely different: a negative review of Richard Jewell from someone who's not blaming Donald Trump: It's extremely dull and hardly covers the title character... a pathetic Paul Blartish security guard/cop wannabe blamed for the bombing... as having gone through a nightmare after being treated like a hero for spotting the explosive, and saving lives, because there's hardly any coverage of the good times when the media supposedly praised him... As for acting, the titular lead is very dull, yet even the negative reviewers are giving him singled-out props while Sam Rockwell goes through the motions as an underdog lawyer fighting the powers that be... Powers that really have no weight or significance here, fueled by a villainous female journalist who supposedly slept with an FBI agent for her big scoop... But when the reporter is portrayed as a cheap drunken skank from the get-go, and the agent is square-jawed Don Draper himself, it seems like just another sexual conquest for a really good looking guy (and Olivia Wilde is somehow made to look average here)...

In a nutshell, Richard Jewell doesn't pay favors to anyone: He and his mom (Kathy Bates) are as cookie-cutter cliche in their banal country-music-loving simplicity as the FBI and media are in their supposed pigheaded prowess, and, perhaps the mundane by-the-book approach in Eastwood's subtle (albeit lifeless) direction is purposeful... But for a supposedly suspenseful expose, there aren't any real thrills here, or twists, or turns, or urgency to matter beyond what feels more like a rehearsal/table-read than a motion picture. Rating: **